Huge expectations - the role of the media in democratic innovation

Mini-publics, which are randomly selected bodies of citizens that debate issues of concern to the public at large, have become a popular democratic innovation that puts focus on deliberation. The almost universal expectation among scholars and politicians who advocate mini-publics is that they have a potential to enable democratic capacity building, or differently phrased that the events in a mini-public will inspire the general public to engage more and better with politics and therefore enhance democracy overall. The transfer of democratic benefits from mini-publics to the public, however, remains unclear. Theorists assume that the link between mini-public and the public would be facilitated by the media who would act as information provider, forum of ideas, and enabler of scrutiny of the mini-public process, however, empirical evidence on how the media fulfills this role, if at all, is scarce. The proposed paper offers a close assessment of the media coverage of the world’s only institutionalised mini-public, the permanent Bürgerdialog in Ostbelgien (citizens’ dialogue in East Belgium), by employing qualitative content analysis of local media outlets. This study shows that the media struggles to live up to the theorised expectations due to external pressures and the very nature of mini-publics themselves.